The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories Part 32

The planes grow at the back of Guy's Hospital, and close by is a short narrow street which bears the name of Maze Pond. It consists for the most part of homely, flat-fronted dwellings, where lodgings are let to medical students. At one of these houses Harvey Munden plied the knocker.

He was answered by a trim, rather pert-looking girl, who smiled familiarly.

'Mr. Shergold isn't in, sir,' she said at once, antic.i.p.ating his question.

'But he _will_ be very soon. Will you step in and wait?'

'I think I will.'

As one who knew the house, he went upstairs, and entered a sitting-room on the first floor. The girl followed him.

'I haven't had time to clear away the breakfast things,' she said, speaking rapidly and with an air. 'Mr. Shergold was late this mornin'; he didn't get up till nearly ten, an' then he sat writin' letters. Did he know as you was comin', sir?'

'No; I looked in on the chance of finding him, or learning where he was.'

'I'm sure he'll be in about half-past twelve, 'cause he said to me as he was only goin' to get a breath of air. He hasn't nothing to do at the 'ospital just now.'

'Has he talked of going away?'

'Going away?' The girl repeated the words sharply, and examined the speaker's face. 'Oh, he won't be goin' away just yet, I think.'

Munden returned her look with a certain curiosity, and watched her as she began to clink together the things upon the table. Obviously she esteemed herself a person of some importance. Her figure was not bad, and her features had the trivial prettiness so commonly seen in London girls of the lower orders,--the kind of prettiness which ultimately loses itself in fat and chronic perspiration. Her complexion already began to show a tendency to muddiness, and when her lips parted, they showed decay of teeth. In dress she was untidy; her hair exhibited a futile attempt at elaborate arrangement; she had dirty hands.

Disposed to talk, she lingered as long as possible, but Harvey Munden had no leanings to this kind of colloquy; when the girl took herself off, he drew a breath of satisfaction, and smiled the smile of an intellectual man who has outlived youthful follies.

He stepped over to the lodger's bookcase. There were about a hundred volumes, only a handful of them connected with medical study. Seeing a volume of his own Munden took it down and idly turned the pages; it surprised him to discover a great many marginal notes in pencil, and an examination of these showed him that Shergold must have gone carefully through the book with an eye to the correction of its style; adjectives were deleted and inserted, words of common usage removed for others which only a fine literary conscience could supply, and in places even the punctuation was minutely changed. Whilst he still pondered this singular manifestation of critical zeal, the door opened, and Shergold came in.

A man of two-and-thirty, short, ungraceful, ill-dressed, with features as little commonplace as can be imagined. He had somewhat a stern look, and on his brow were furrows of care. Light-blue eyes tended to modify the all but harshness of his lower face; when he smiled, as on recognising his friend, they expressed a wonderful innocence and suavity of nature; overshadowed, in thoughtful or troubled mood, by his heavy eyebrows, they became deeply pathetic. His nose was short and flat, yet somehow not ign.o.ble; his full lips, bare of moustache, tended to suggest a melancholy fretfulness. But for the high forehead, no casual observer would have cared to look at him a second time; but that upper story made the whole countenance vivid with intellect, as though a light beamed upon it from above.

'You hypercritical beggar!' cried Harvey, turning with the volume in his hand. 'Is this how you treat the glorious works of your contemporaries?'

Shergold reddened and was mute.

'I shall take this away with me,' pursued the other, laughing. 'It'll be worth a little study.'

'My dear fellow--you won't take it ill of me--I didn't really mean it as a criticism,' the deep, musical voice stammered in serious embarra.s.sment.

'Why, wasn't it just this kind of thing that caused a quarrel between George Sand and Musset?'

'Yes, yes; but George Sand was such a peremptory fellow, and Musset such a vapourish young person. Look! I'll show you what I meant.'

'Thanks,' said Munden, 'I can find that out for myself.' He thrust the book into his coat-pocket. 'I came to ask you if you are aware of your uncle's condition.'

'Of course I am.

'When did you see him last?'

'See him?' Shergold's eyes wandered vaguely. 'Oh, to talk with him, about a month ago.'

'Did you part friendly?'

'On excellent terms. And last night I went to ask after him. Unfortunately he didn't know any one, but the nurse said he had been mentioning my name, and in a kind way.'

'Capital! Hadn't you better walk in that direction this afternoon?'

'Yes, perhaps I had, and yet, you know, I hate to have it supposed that I am hovering about him.'

'All the same, go.'

Shergold pointed to a chair. 'Sit down a bit. I have been having a talk with Dr. Salmon. He discourages me a good deal. You know it's far from certain that I shall go on with medicine.'

'Far from certain!' the other a.s.sented, smiling. 'By the bye, I hear that you have been in the world of late. You were at Lady Teasdale's not long ago.'

'Well--yes--why not?'

Perhaps it was partly his vexation at the book incident,--Shergold seemed unable to fix his thoughts on anything; he shuffled in his seat and kept glancing nervously towards the door.

'I was delighted to hear it,' said his friend. 'That's a symptom of health.

Go everywhere; see everybody--that's worth seeing. They got you to talk, I believe?'

'Who has been telling you? I'm afraid I talked a lot of rubbish; I had s.h.i.+vers of shame all through a sleepless night after it. But some one brought up Whistler, and etching, and so on, and I had a few ideas of which I wanted to relieve my mind. And, after all, there's a pleasure in talking to intelligent people. Henry Wilt was there with his daughters. Clever girls, by Jove! And Mrs. Peter Rayne--do you know her?'

'Know of her, that's all.'

'A splendid woman--brains, brains! Upon my soul, I know no such delight as listening to a really intellectual woman, when she's also beautiful. I shake with delight--and what women one does meet, nowadays! Of course the world never saw their like. I have my idea of Aspasia--but there are lots of grander women in London to-day. One ought to live among the rich. What a wretched mistake, when one can help it, to herd with narrow foreheads, however laudable your motive! Since I got back among the better people my life has been trebled--oh, centupled--in value!'

'My boy,' remarked Munden quietly, 'didn't I say something to this effect on a certain day nine years ago?'

'Don't talk of it,' the other replied, waving his hand in agitation. 'We'll never look back at that.'

'Your room is stuffy,' said Munden, rising. 'Let us go and have lunch somewhere.'

'Yes, we will! Just a moment to wash my hands--I've been in the dissecting-room.'

The friends went downstairs. At the foot they pa.s.sed the landlady's daughter: she drew back, but, as Shergold allowed his companion to pa.s.s into the street, her voice made itself heard behind him.

'Shall you want tea, Mr. Shergold?'

Munden turned sharply and looked at the girl. Shergold did not look at her, but he delayed for a moment and appeared to balance the question. Then, in a friendly voice, he said--

'No, thank you. I may not be back till late in the evening.' And he went on hurriedly.

'Cheeky little beggar that,' Munden observed, with a glance at his friend.

'Oh, not a bad girl in her way. They've made me very comfortable. All the same, I shan't grieve when the day of departure comes.'

It was not cheerful, the life-story of Henry Shergold. At two-and-twenty he found himself launched upon the world, with a university education incomplete and about forty pounds in his pocket. A little management, a little less of boyish pride, and he might have found the means to go forward to his degree, with pleasant hopes in the background; but Henry was a Radical, a scorner of privilege, a believer in human perfectibility. He got a place in an office, and he began to write poetry--some of which was published and duly left unpaid for. A year later there came one fateful day when he announced to his friend Harvey Munden that he was going to be married. His chosen bride was the daughter of a journeyman tailor--a tall, pale, unhealthy girl of eighteen, whose acquaintance he had made at a tobacconist's shop, where she served. He was going to marry her on principle--principle informed with callow pa.s.sion, the pa.s.sion of a youth who has lived demurely, more among books than men. Harvey Munden flew into a rage, and called upon the G.o.ds in protest. But Shergold was not to be shaken. The girl, he declared, had fallen in love with him during conversations across the counter; her happiness was in his hands, and he would not betray it. She had excellent dispositions; he would educate her.

The friends quarrelled about it, and Shergold led home his bride.

With the results which any sane person could have foretold. The marriage was a hideous disaster; in three years it brought Shergold to an attempted suicide, for which he had to appear at the police-court. His relative, the distinguished doctor, who had hitherto done nothing for him, now came forward with counsel and a.s.sistance. Happily the only child of the union had died at a few weeks old, and the wife, though making noisy proclamation of rights, was so weary of her husband that she consented to a separation.